Gaming

Consoles had a few things going for it, making them appealing over PC:

• More affordable up-front than PC
• Easy to use for tech-averse users
• Tangible sense of ownership

As always though, business execs find a way to ignore common sense and strip out the appeal of anything in existence.

The first point needs no explanation. Most consoles today are quickly approaching the price level for a mid-range PC and have already surpassed the more budget or used models.

As for ease of use, consoles are more and more like PCs today. It's more or less mandatory on console to take part in scary things such as setting up accounts with 2FA, installing security updates, and worry about account bans when younger siblings/kids borrow the system.

Having physical media meant you could always go back and play something given there was a system to play it on. Going all-digital on console is a dead end compared to on PC. Most of your digital games on PC will follow you onto every new PC you get for years and years to come (although those may be revoked also). Once you replace a console with the next gen thing, your library is barren again. Sure, you can keep your previous gen console around but it seems for every generation the units fail sooner and sooner. I bet in 10 years there won't be a single functioning PS5 around that hasn't seen major repairs.

Nintendo decided to boil the frog slowly, the frog being physical media, by making game key cards which can conveniently be disabled when they start competing with remakes and whatnot in the future.

I can't see myself buying a console ever again and I was exclusively a console gamer until this generation started.

Big TV gaming will be handled by my PC and portable gaming will be on my ROG Ally.

I already lost interest when the only generational improvement was to push 4k, a display technology that mostly makes things worse by necessitating dubious upscaling algorithms and sacrifices framerate for clarity you can only see by sitting on the floor. PS4 games already look great, often better than next gen due to art direction.

The first website I searched up, said that Microsoft is still releasing physical games for the Xbox

There was never a reason to buy a console for the last few generations. PC tech has grown beyond the bounds of whatever consoles could offer now, and it's pretty clear that all of the console players are trying really hard to lock you in an expensive ecosystem. New controllers, new live services, new games that you rent only for that console.

Meanwhile, Gabe's strategy with Steam is to do almost nothing and continue winning.

I'm leaning this way for the first time in decades. I've had every Playstation console from the beginning, plus Xbox and Nintendo systems here and there. As the indie game market has evolved in the past 5-10 years, I've found my playing preferences transition away from big, detailed, AA/A, as I'm sure many others have as well. I bought a Steam OS Legion Go last year and have been enchanted by the flexibility of PC gaming, even as it's limited for me to what can be played on a handheld.

I strongly disagree with any notion that consoles have had no value comparable to PCs for years. I think PC gamers vastly underestimate the value of being able to one-click purchase a console, pull it out of the box, plug it in, and play. I've explored gaming PC purchases since I bought the Legion, and there is a comparably steep commitment required to research CPUs, GPUs, storage, cooling, and RAM, and how their combination will affect performance and longevity. You can buy pre-built, but you're looking at roughly $1k for a lower mid-level machine, plus peripherals and maintenance. Perhaps this is part of the fun for some people, but it's definitely a barrier for many.

On the other hand, the distance between PCs and consoles continues to widen, where the newly released PS5 was only barely a good value for its power compared to PCs when it released and quickly fell behind again. Similarly, I've enjoyed being able to experiment with games I wouldn't otherwise have played via the Playstation Plus catalog, but no subscription media service has ever maintained or increased its value over time, and Sony has already raised prices while the quality of its offerings continues to wane. And of course the abandonment of physical media means that we are further locked into an already tight ecosystem.

Ultimately, one of the big reasons I'm finally considering a PC purchase in place of the next console generation is that I've been playing with a home media server the past couple years and recently migrated to Linux Mint. My confidence level with feeling capable of managing a PC effectively has grown enough that the aforementioned barrier feels less intimidating. Hopefully the Steam Machine will close the gap for some console players feeling similarly, but the inability to upgrade the GPU feels too big a deal when I could just make the slightly longer leap to an actual PC.

Well they bought all the game studios and then closed them, so there won’t be any games to play anyway.

"NO! this isn't happening!! There's no reason to go on!

What am I - what am I BUYING FOOOOORRR...!!!"

I'd argue that my seriesX upgrade was pointless